As mentioned before, I slept in yesterday morning. That gave the new place a chance to air out a little.
Around noon I pulled my truck down by the lake and retrieved the ladder stand I had down there. I'd decided that would be a good choice for the new spot.... it's on the perimeter of the property and might be subject to thieves.
They might still get it, but it's old and cheap and weighs a ton. If they are that ambitious I won't be out that much.
Most thieves seem to be to lazy to work, but not too lazy to steal... unless it involves work.
I did a quick scout around to see if I could make sense of why the deer I'd seen the night before were where they were.
Walking directly behind where I'd been hiding on the ground I found another trail. It angled slightly away from it's intersection with the first trail I'd found.
It passed within 20 yards of my first ambush spot.
I'd noticed that all three of the deer appeared to feed their way along with noses to the ground, breaking away from the trail and then back to it. But what were they feeding on. Lots of hickories dropping nuts (enough that you'd want to watch what tree you sat in or under)...that shouldn't be it. Lots of maples, but they weren't dropping any leaves and left nothing else on the ground that deer might like.
Finally I saw what I had been looking for all along. I big white oak stood less than 20 yards from the trail. That settled it.
A nice big maple whose trunk split into two equal size trunks about 10 feet up stood in just the right spot to be within shooting range of the new trail, the oak and the original trail. That's where the ladder stand would go.
In no time the stand was up and I'd done some prudent trimming in likely spots, using the leafy branches to camoflage the stand from the eyes of humans.
Even up at the level of the platform the trunks were almost as wide as my shoulders. That would give me great cover. The two trunks added more concealment potential...deer can't seem to tell that the trunk with the arms and legs is something to be afraid of.